Bone Harvest

by Mary Logue

  After pulling on her plastic gloves, Claire reached into her pocket for a plastic bag. “I’ll be doing the same with the crime bureau.”

  Sorenson looked over at her. “A word of warning—when you get near the plants, try not to breathe.”

  “Okay.” She pulled on her gloves, inhaled deeply, and went in for a plant. She tugged at a large marigold that was right in the middle of the patch. It must have had roots that went down to China. She was almost ready to give up on it when it came loose from the soil and she landed on her butt.

  That was when she saw the hint of white in the flower bed. She needed to breathe, so she stuffed the plant into her bag, stood up, and backed off again.

  Sorenson had his plant in a bag and he appeared ready to leave.

  “Wait a minute. I think I see something.” Claire pulled another plastic bag out of her pocket and, again, took a deep breath. She walked in toward the flower bed, ducked her head down so she was on the level she had been when she was sitting, and examined the white object again. She inched up to it, put her gloved hand in the bed, and came out with a white bone the length of a matchstick.

  No way of knowing if it was human or not until the lab reported on the bones she had already sent in to them.

  She looked over at Sorenson and held up the bone. “I think it’s our guy.”

  Harold Peabody loved coming in to work on Sundays. It was so quiet in the newspaper office. He had worshiped at his typewriter for many years. The town shut down and his office on Main Street was his private sanctum. Neither of his two reporters ever bothered to show their faces on Sundays. They were young and probably off gallivanting.

  The missus understood. She never bothered anymore to ask him if he wanted to go to church. He went on Easter and on Christmas. If the choir was putting on a special performance, he might go. He liked singing the hymns, the old hymns. God and he had an understanding: God could watch over the world and Harold Peabody would watch over Pepin County.

  Harold had been working on the Durand Daily for fifty-one years. It had truly been a daily when he first started writing as a cub reporter in 1950. Old Mr. Lundberg owned it then. Harold had bought it from him in 1970. After ten years, he stopped publishing the Saturday and Sunday editions. They had changed from Linotype to offset press shortly after that. Saved a lot of money, but he missed the smell of the hot type being spit out by the machine, and reading the paper upside down on its metal bed.

  He didn’t figure he’d be at it much longer. He wondered if he put the paper up for sale if anyone would even buy it. Revenues weren’t high, but he had his steady customers who advertised every week. The community counted on his paper to tell them who was getting married, who had died, and who was having a rummage sale. In this rural community an announcement for a wedding was often made in the paper rather than the couple sending out individual invitations, since everyone in town was usually invited.

  Maybe he’d retire in the next year or two and start to work on his memoirs. That Frank McCourt had done so well with his memoirs. Americans found terrible Irish childhoods so romantic and exotic. Would they feel the same about a tough Wisconsin childhood? He remembered his family trying to make it through the Depression years. Many nights they ate beans. Some nights they didn’t eat. Harder to look at your own poor. Nothing romantic about that. But he didn’t think the young people of today realized how tough it had been during those years. It might be worth trying to write about it so that the Depression wasn’t completely forgotten.

  He had been one of the lucky ones. He had been sickly, so he couldn’t help out that much in the fields. And he had been bright. His mother had fought for him and kept him going to school, years after most children quit. He had been the first child in his family to graduate from college at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

  He was working on his usual Sunday-afternoon project—the column called “Fifty Years Ago Today.” It was his excuse to spend hours looking through the archives, remembering the past, studying it. How little we seem to learn from it, he thought. And yet, there had been no big world wars for nearly sixty years now. That was something to be thankful for.

  Agnes and he were childless. After they found out they couldn’t have children, they talked about adopting, but they just never got around to it. To be truthful, he figured they liked their lives the way they were. But sometimes, on his Sunday afternoons, when he was paging through a century’s worth of news, he wondered about the future. He felt oddly adrift from it. Because he had no progeny, he felt he didn’t really care what happened to the world. He heard so many people go on about the sacredness of human life, and yet every day some small creature, the end of a species, was dying. No one did too much about that. He thought the world might be just as well off without any humans. Such egotistical critters. Who knew what wonderful being might come to take their place?

  This was one of the reasons he didn’t go to church. Everyone there seemed to want to believe that God, the so-called higher power, was a kind of father. Harold didn’t buy it. He did believe in a power, but it was beyond words. In the day, he would stare into the blueness of the sky and dive into it. At night, he fell into the stars. Both movements of falling gave him the same feeling he had when he tried to imagine the vast extent of this power. So beyond us. Yet we try to reach it with our minds. Harold figured it was good exercise and did it often, but felt like most religions tried to bring God so close to humans that the word lost everything it might mean.

  The clock on the wall struck the hour and his mind came back to the office. Every wall lined with bookshelves, every bookshelf filled to the point of collapse. Agnes didn’t dare set foot in the place. She was afraid that a pile of books might fall and bury her.

  More and more often he felt himself leaving the world around him to dwell in the landscape of his mind. At least he had seen no evidence of Alzheimer’s. He just tended to drift off frequently.

  He didn’t believe one could think too much. As he got older, he felt his mind enlarge. Not the real shape of it, but its ability to sense how large everything was and take it in. He loved this feeling. The universe was bigger than human beings. That was all there was to it. They could come or they could go, but the universe would endure forever. That was as close to religion as he got.

  He pulled himself back to the task at hand. He needed to get the column done. What had gone on fifty years ago this week? The Korean conflict was just heating up. McCarthy was beginning to make his presence felt, and wasn’t it a shame he was one of the senators from Wisconsin. Even though he hadn’t voted for him, Harold had always felt bad that his home state had inflicted that madman on the country.

  Harold pulled out a stack of papers and started reading through the ones from the first week in July 1952. One article jumped out at him. He leaned closer and read it through. It had been the biggest crime that had ever taken place in the county. He remembered the incident well. Reporters had descended upon Durand from all over the country to get the news. It had horrified the state for many months. It had never been solved.

  CHAPTER 4

  The boy was growing out of his body. Claire watched him come into the sheriff’s department and then stood to let him know she saw him. Ray Sorenson. He was his father’s son—taller than his father, over six feet, hair like dried wheat, big hands, sunburned nose. Not a handsome kid, but one with potential. He just wasn’t put together right yet. Time would tell.

  As he walked toward her, he hunched his shoulders and dragged his feet. If he stood up straight and tall, he would be closer to being a man, Claire thought. Maybe he wasn’t ready for that yet.

  “My dad said you wanted to talk to me.” His eyes were on the floor.

  “Thanks for coming by, Ray. I’m a deputy sheriff for the county. Claire Watkins, but you can just call me Claire. I assume you know what happened at the cooperative?”

  He nodded, standing with his weight on one side of his body and then shifting it to the other side. His cutoff
jeans hung loose and low on him; she imagined them caught on his hipbones. A big black T-shirt covered the top of the jeans so nothing inappropriate showed. Nike tennis shoes with the shoelaces trailing and the tongues hanging out completed the ensemble. But he looked clean.

  “Sit down.” She pushed a chair his way and he sat. “Can I get you a Coke?”

  Ray raised his head at the suggestion and she saw that his eyes were like his father’s—light blue, like cornflowers. A Scandinavian blue. They seemed to draw light to his face. “Yeah, a Coke would be great.”

  “Hot out there, isn’t it?”

  She walked to the vending machine and got them both a Coke. She didn’t usually drink colas, but decided to make an exception on this hot summer day. Also, it would be good to join him in a drink—he might talk easier.

  She handed him the Coke and he popped the tab and drank half the can in one swallow. “Thirsty?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I just got up,” he told her. “Didn’t have time to eat anything. This is breakfast.”

  “Ray, please sit down. I need to ask you some questions.”

  He folded himself into the chair next to her desk.

  “Where were you Friday night?”

  She could see his face fall in on itself. “Just out.”

  “I’m not your parents. You don’t need to worry about what you tell me. I’m not going to give you a scolding. This is serious. I do need to know where you were and what you were doing. Were you with your friends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can you give me their names?”

  He lifted his head and looked out from under straw-colored eyebrows. “Do I have to?”

  “Is there any reason you wouldn’t want to?” she asked him, surprised at his reticence. She was just looking for an alibi.

  His face tinged red. “Well, one of them might get in trouble.”

  Claire thought she knew what was going on. “You have a girlfriend?”

  Ray looked at her like she had just guessed the right answer on a quiz show, mouth slightly ajar. She would wait him out on this question.

  She took a sip of her Coke. Not a bad drink, but a little too sweet for her. It needed ice and a lemon slice floating in it.

  “Are you going to have to talk to her?” he asked.

  “How late were you out together?”

  He ducked his head and then came up for air. “Her parents don’t know. They don’t know she was out with me Friday night.”

  “Where do they think she was?”

  “At a friend’s.”

  “But she was with you?”

  He nodded.

  “All night long?”

  He slumped in his chair, not denying the statement.

  “Where did you hang out?”

  “There’s an old deserted church up on Double N. You can get in through one of the windows. We spent part of the night there.”

  Claire knew the church. They must be in love to put up with that place for a night. She would have thought an open field would be better, but the mosquitoes could be bad. “Does your father know?”

  Ray shook his head.

  “You might want to tell him.”

  “Are you going to talk to her?” he asked.

  “What’s her name?” Claire asked back.

  “Tiffany. Tiffany Black.”

  Claire thought, I should have guessed. Half the girls in the county were named Tiffany. “I will talk to her, but I don’t need to say anything to her parents.”

  “Cool,” he said.

  “I hope you’re being careful.” She was surprised when the words came out of her mouth. She couldn’t help it. She was a mother.

  Ray stared at her, then finished the Coke in another swallow. This time he looked right at Claire. “Thanks for the Coke.”

  Charles Folger was glad that Sorenson had warned him that the deputy was a woman. He had heard about this one from the big city. Too big for her britches—and she was wearing britches. Getting ahead of men who had been working for the sheriff for years. She had made some enemies.

  Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins was sitting across the desk from him. He was ready for her.

  “So you are the agronomist for the cooperative, Mr. Folger?” she said, referring to a notebook she opened.

  She probably didn’t even know what that meant. Folger had his spiel down pat. “I am a specialist in the art and science of crop production.”

  She smiled at him and wrote something down. She had good teeth, he noticed. Large and white. She looked like a very healthy woman. But he did not approve of women working as police officers or deputies or whatever name you wanted to give them in law enforcement.

  “How long have you been working for the cooperative?”

  “Why? Do you want to know how old I am?”

  She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Have you been working here since you were born?”

  So she thought she could be funny. “I’m seventy-one years old. No mandatory retirement. I’ve been working here since I was twenty-seven. That’s probably longer than you’ve been around.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She gave him a look and then continued, “Have you had a chance to examine the plant that Ron Sorenson took from the garden that was destroyed in front of the sheriff’s department?”

  “Yes,” he answered. Make her work.

  “And what did you find?”

  “It was, as suspected, Parazone.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  He would do his job. Just because she was a woman didn’t mean he would thwart the investigation. It was not his way. “Yes. Whoever did this has probably used this product before.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He added a nonionic surfactant to the spray.”

  She stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He said nothing more.

  “And what is that, please?”

  “It is an agent we recommend adding to Parazone because it gives it a better spread. In layman’s terms, or in this case laywoman’s, it makes the Parazone stick to the plants better. It makes the pesticide much more effective.”

  Watkins wrote some more things down in her notebook. She took her time about her work. He assumed she was thorough. He understood because he was very thorough. He often did his tests two or three times just to make sure they gave the same results each time. He never guessed about anything. As much as possible he believed in taking the guesswork out of his job. He was a scientist, not an artist.

  “That is very helpful. So what I gather from what you’re telling me is that we are probably looking for a farmer?”

  “I would venture to say that, but let us assume that it is someone who has used these pesticides before, or who has watched them be used.”

  “Do you know how many farmers there are in Pepin County?”

  “Out of a total population of close to eight thousand, I think the last census showed that less than a quarter of the adult men were farmers. Since there are around two thousand adult men, I think that puts the number of farmers at around five hundred.”

  “Narrows down the search slightly—assuming that our guy lives in Pepin County.” She tapped her pencil on her front teeth, a disturbing habit. “What I need to understand here, Mr. Folger, is how dangerous these products are. I’ve read the labels. I understand that they are both restricted-use pesticides. But what precisely does that mean?”

  “It means that both products have the ability to injure people.”

  She sighed and then said slowly, “Yes, I understand that. But how do they do it and how much does it take? Is it easily accomplished or does it require a megadose? Let’s say, rolling in the product, bathing in it, swallowing a gallon of it.”

  “Let’s not get carried away, Mrs. Watkins.”

  “You can just call me Deputy Watkins.”

  “Are you not a Mrs.? My mistake.”

  S
he let his comment pass. He was sure that he had heard that she had been married and had kept her married name. Apparently she didn’t want to be known by that name. Another strike against her.

  “Let us start here. Is one more dangerous to humans than the other?”

  “Between Caridon and Parazone?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s hard to say.”

  “Give it a go.”

  “Which would you think?” he asked her. Let’s see what she’d do with this. Would she even give it a try?

  Deputy Watkins thought for a moment, then ventured, “I guess I’d say Caridon, since it’s an insecticide. We’re closer to bugs than to plants. That would be my guess.”

  “And you would be wrong.” It felt good to be able to say that to this cocky woman who thought she knew everything. “Parazone is deadly if swallowed or inhaled, and can be extremely injurious if it is absorbed through the skin. Caridon is most dangerous when inhaled. This effect only lasts a short time after the product has been sprayed on the fields.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Caridon causes cholinesterase inhibition. Parazone causes mucosal damage. Again, more simply: Caridon will knock you out; Parazone will cause you great pain. Either way you will die if you have ingested enough of the product.”

  “Have you ever heard of this happening?”

  “Only once in all my years of work here have I known anyone to run into trouble with one of these products. A young boy was working with his father and stayed in the field too long after it had been sprayed. He had some serious nosebleeds, but he recovered.”

  Her head came up. “Who was that?”

  “Why?”

  “I might like to speak with him.”

  “This was years ago.”

  “His name?”

  Reluctantly, Charles gave her the farmer’s name: Hal Swenson. He couldn’t think of any good reason not to. Then he snapped, “Why are you asking me all these questions? What do you imagine is going to happen?”

  Deputy Watkins put down her notebook and pen and leaned toward him. She then began to talk slowly and clearly. “It is my job to be prepared for what could happen. I need to understand the destructive potential of these two agents. I protect the welfare of the people of Pepin County. Any help you can give us will be appreciated both by the sheriff and by the county.”